May 04, 2015

The day of Mr. Lincoln's Springfield funeral was a scorcher. At 10:00 A.M. the doors to the State House were closed, and Mr. Lincoln's body was prepared for burial by the undertaker and embalmer. The coffin was carried to an elegant hearse (finished in gold, silver, and crystal) lent to Springfield by the city of St. Louis. The procession was led by Major-General Joseph Hooker and followed a zigzag route from the State House, past Mr. Lincoln's home, past the Governor's Mansion, and onto the country road leading to Oak Ridge Cemetery. The hearse was followed immediately by Old Bob wearing a mourning blanket. Mr. Lincoln's only two blood relatives in attendance that day were his son, Robert, and his cousin, John Hanks. Mrs. Lincoln was still in mourning in the White House. The procession was the largest spectacle the Midwest had ever seen. Upon arrival at the cemetery, the coffin was laid upon the marble slab inside the tomb. Willie's little coffin was also placed inside the tomb.

As a ruler I doubt if any president has ever shown such trust in God, or in public documents so frequently referred to Divine aid. Often did he remark to friends and to delegations that his hope for our success rested in his conviction that God would bless our efforts, because we were trying to do right. To the address of a large religious body he replied, "Thanks be unto God, who, in our national trials, giveth us the Churches." To a minister who said he hoped the Lord was on our side, he replied that it gave him no concern whether the Lord was on our side or not "For," he added, "I know the Lord is always on the side of right;" and with deep feeling added, "But God is my witness that it is my constant anxiety and prayer that both myself and this nation should be on the Lord's side."

April 22, 2015

On this date in 1865, the body of Abraham Lincoln arrived in Philadelphia and was taken to Independence Hall for viewing over the next two days. The nine car train had left Washington the day before and made three stops in Maryland before stopping for the night in Harrisburg, PA.

At 10:00 A.M. 40,000 people lined Harrisburg's streets to watch the hearse carry the coffin back to the depot. At 11:15 A.M. the train departed Harrisburg for the 106-mile journey over the Pennsylvania Railroad to Philadelphia where it arrived at the Broad Street Station at 4:30 P.M. A hearse took Mr. Lincoln's coffin through Philadelphia's jam-packed streets to Independence Hall. There the coffin was placed in the East Wing where the Declaration of Independence had been signed. Viewing that evening was by invitation only.

The next day an estimated 300,000 would pay their respects, some waiting in line as long as five hours.

As the train bearing Lincoln's body arrived in Philadelphia, the hunted John Wilkes Booth and his companion David Herold were holed up in a Maryland farm house awaiting nightfall and a second attempt to row across the Potomac and escape to Virginia.

Further south in North Carolina, Union Gen. Sherman and Confederate Gen. Johnston had arranged a cease-fire a week after Lee surrendured. After several days of negotiation they agreed on terms of surrender for the remaining rebel forces on April 19. However, Sherman had exceeded his authority by including post-war civil and political arrangements and they were rejected in Washington, D.C. Sherman's long time friend, Gen. U.S. Grant was dispatched to North Carolina to get things cleared up.

It was a necessary formality, but thousands of rebel soldiers had already decided not to wait and deserted their units, if you can call it that, for home.

April 15, 2015

About 6 A.M. I experienced a feeling of faintness, and for the first time after entering the room a little past eleven I left it and the house and took a short walk in the open air. It was a dark and gloomy morning, and rain set in before I returned to the house some fifteen minutes later. Large groups of people were gathered every few rods, all anxious and solicitous. Some one or more from each group stepped forward as I passed to inquire into the condition of the President and to ask if there was no hope. Intense grief was on every countenance when I replied that the President could survive but a short time. The colored people especially-and there were at this time more of them, perhaps, than of whites - were overwhelmed with grief.

A little before seven I went into the room where the dying President was rapidly drawing near the closing moments. His wife soon after made her last visit to him. The death struggle had begun. Robert, his son, stood with several others at the head of the bed. He, bore himself well but on two occasions gave way to overpowering grief and sobbed aloud, turning his head and leaning on the shoulder of Senator Sumner. The respiration of the President became suspended at intervals and at last entirely ceased at twenty-two minutes past seven.

April 09, 2015

Robert E. Lee's plan for the morning was simple: Gen. John Brown Gordon and his corps, supported by Gen. Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry troops, would attack the Union forces at Appomattox Station at dawn, recapture the supplies taken the day before, and open a gap in the union lines so the Army of Northern Virginia could escape. Gen. James Longstreet and his corps would hold off the Union troops until Gordon could break out and then rejoin the rest of the army. The resupplied rebels would then make their way to North Carolina to join up with Joe Johnston and his Army of the Tennessee.

Gordon and his men at first met with great success against Sheridan's Union cavalry, but it was a ruse. Union infantry had marched through the night and by 8:00 am Gordon and his men were being forced back. Meanwhile, the rearguard effort of Longstreet had been pushed back to Lee's bivouac by a furious attack from the Union Army of the Potomac. It soon became clear to Lee that the situation was hopeless.

Lee and Union Gen. Ulysses Grant had been trading messages for several days up to this point. Grant had declined to meet with Lee unless it was to discuss the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Now Lee penned the following note to Grant:

"April 9th, 1865.General: I received your note of this morning on the picket-line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army. I now ask an interview, in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday, for that purpose.R.E. Lee, General."

Upon receipt, Grant immediately replied:

"April 9th, 1865.General R. E. Lee Commanding C. S. Army:Your note of this date is but this moment (11:50 A.M.) received, in consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburg road to the Farmville and Lynchburg road. I am at this writing about four miles west of Walker's Church, and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you. Notice sent to me on this road where you wish the interview to take place will meet me.U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General."

About an hour before that, Lee had ordered Longstreet and Gordon to each put forward the white flag of truce, and as the guns fell silent there was a great deal of confusion at first about who exactly was surrendering to whom. Eventually it became clear that Lee and Grant had arranged to meet to discuss terms and both sides stepped back to await the results. The two men would meet at the house of Mr. Wilmer McLean.

Stepping up on McLean's porch, Grant entered the house and walked to the parlor, where Lee was seated at a table. The Confederate commander rose, tall and straight in his finest uniform. Grant's appearance was in stark contrast to Lee's. With his habit of advancing to the forward echelons, Grant wore a privates' issue, his only insignia being a general stars' on twin hand-sewn epaulets on the shoulders.

With the evidence of a hard night's work on his uniform, Grant shook hands with Lee. Two weeks shy of his 43rd birthday, Grant's beard was dark, with dabbles of grey. Lee, 15 years Grant's elder, had a beard that was mostly white and he stood with dignity and honor. Grant was smaller than Lee and that difference in height was exacerbated by a noticeable stoop in the Union commander's shoulders. Still, both in their own manner commanded respect.

Beyond physical appearance there were sharp contrasts in their personal histories. Lee, an aristocratic plantation owner whose uncle signed the Declaration of Independence, whose father had been a 3 term governor of Virginia, and himself married to a granddaughter of Martha Washington and Grant, son of a merchant and a failed farmer who sold wood on the streets of St. Louis when his family needed food.

Grant began the conversation, "I have met you once before..." when the Virginian was General Winfield Scott's chief-of-staff during the Mexican War. Grant continued, "...but I would not expect a superior officer of your rank to remember it." Lee acknowledge meeting Grant, "I remember meeting you..." but admitted that he had not been able to remember much about his opponent. They recalled, almost fondly, the times serving under General Scott, the Virginian whose blueprint for Union victory became Grant's battleplan.

At 1:30 Grant wrote out the following:

APPOMATTOX C. H., VA., Ap 19th, 1865.

GEN. R. E. LEE, Comd'g C. S. A.

GEN: In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th inst., (see Surrender Letters) I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of N. Va. on the following terms, to wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate. One copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officer appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles and the laws in force where they may reside.

Very respectfully,

U. S. GRANT, Lt. Gen.

Lee noted that many of his men owned their own horses as well and Grant immediately agreed to allow them to keep them. With a short letter, Lee officially agreed to the terms.

That evening Union commissary wagons arrived at the Confederate camps with rations for the starving troops. Over the next three days the terms of surrender were carried out and the Army of Northern Virginia was no more.

The head of the snake had been cut off, but the body was still moving. Jefferson Davis and his cabinet fled south with the vain hope of keeping some part of the Confederacy alive. There were roughly 90,000 rebel troops still under arms in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Additional units were scattered to the west.

Pretty much everyone, however, knew the war was over. As celebrations broke out in Washington, Abraham Lincoln began to work on what would be his final speech.

April 08, 2015

Even with the fall of Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia reeling, Confederate quartermasters were able to assemble several trains and dozens of wagons full of desperately needed supplies for Lee's army. They arrived at a handful of buildings known as Appomattox Station on April 8, 1865 and awaited the rebel troops.

Unbeknownst to the Confederates, Union cavalry had learned of the supply trains and were determined to capture them before Lee could get there. Gen. George Custer's troopers, reinforced by Union infantry, engaged the Confederate forces and drove them off in a battle that lasted into the moonlit night.

That night Lee held what would be his final war council with his senior generals. Unaware that Custer had moved or destroyed the supplies that were captured that day, and that far more Federal troops were as close as they were, Lee and his generals agreed to a morning attack to recapture the supplies and then break out of the tightening Union noose.

On April 8, President Lincoln left the comfort of the River Queen, came ashore, and with a group including his wife, visited the Depot Field Hospital. The Depot Field Hospital, with 10,000 beds, was the largest of four military hospitals at City Point. The hospital consisted of 90 stockade pavilions, 50 by 20 feet in size, and 452 tents during the winter but more tents were added by the time of the President’s visit. Those patients with the ability to move about waited in a line outside of each facility and had a chance to shake the President’s hand. Bedridden patients each received a personal visit by Lincoln. The soldiers, according to hospital attendant Wilbur Fisk, were “pleased.. beyond measure” but Fisk also pointed out that it appeared that Lincoln “took almost as much pleasure in honoring the boys, as the boy did in receiving the honor from him.”

Lincoln’s compassion was evident throughout as he did his best to encourage the suffering soldiers but, on at least one occasion, was brought to tears at the sight of ghastly wounds and mutilated bodies. By day’s end, the exhausted President had shaken the hands of over 6,000 patients, including sick and wounded Confederate soldiers.

April 06, 2015

On April 1, 1865, a Union victory at the Battle of Five Forks had finally rendered the Confederate defense of Richmond and Petersburg impossible. The Army of Northern Virginia, what was left of it, began to evacuate Petersburg on the evening of April 2 and had completely left it by the early morning hours of April 3. Union troops crossed the long besieged and now empty rebel fortifications before dawn that day and the city surrendered peacefully.

The impending fall of Petersburg also ended any thought of keeping the Union from taking Richmond. When the Confederate government officially announced on the afternoon of April 2 that it was fleeing the city, it set in motion chaos and disaster that would nearly ruin Richmond:

Despite every effort made on the part of the few remaining Confederate soldiers and the city's officials, chaos ruled Richmond that night. Knowing that the Union army was about to enter the town, and having heard how badly the city of Columbia, South Carolina had fared when Union soldiers discovered the stores of whisky, Richmond's officials ordered all liquor to be destroyed. In the need for haste, however, those men charged with going through the stocks of every saloon and warehouse found the most expedient way was to smash the bottles and pour the kegs into the gutters and down the street drains. The stench attracted crowds. They gulped the whisky from the curbstones, picked it up in their hats and boots, and guzzled it before stooping for more. So the action taken to prevent a Union army rampage started a rampage by the city's own people.

Looters roamed the streets of Richmond that night and fires burned down much of the center of the city. Union troops entered the city on the morning of April 3 and reestablished order.

Meanwhile, Lee and his army were moving west in hopes of resupplying and then moving south to meet up with Joe Johnston's reorganized Army of Tennessee in North Carolina. Lee believed the combined forces, now that he was free from the constraints around defending Richmond, might hold off the Union armies for a considerable time.

Unfortunately for Lee, the promised supplies included munitions, but no food for his men. Precious time was lost and Union troops under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan caught up with Lee and blocked his way by the evening of April 5. Lee continued to try to maneuver around Sheridan and his men, but with other Union forces arriving to reinforce Sheridan, parts of Lee's command were forced to fight in the Battle of Sayler's Creek.

While Union casualties for the Battle of Sayler's Creek numbered around 1,150, the Confederate forces engaged lost around 7,700 killed, wounded, and captured. Effectively the death knell of the Army of Northern Virginia, Confederate losses at Sayler's Creek represented approximately a quarter of Lee's remaining strength. Riding out from Rice's Depot, Lee saw the survivors of Ewell's and Anderson's corps streaming west and exclaimed, "My God, has the army dissolved?" Consolidating his men at Farmville early on April 7, Lee was able to partially re-provision his men before being forced out by early afternoon.

The Union pursuit was relentless and Lee was finding his escape routes blocked at every turn. Instead of renewed hope in meeting up with Johnston in North Carolina, the end was now in sight.

March 04, 2015

By this day in 1865 it had become obvious to all but the staunchest rebels that the American Civil War was staggering to its now inevitable conclusion. For the Union, it was time to prepare for what would come next.

Sherman's army was on the South Carolina-North Carolina border, having taken Columbia, South Carolina two weeks earlier. That forced the Confederates to abandon Charleston or be easily trapped by Sherman's 90,000 strong army. To the north, Grant's Petersburg Campaign had stretched Lee's exhausted army to the breaking point along a 40-mile front and plans for the final push were underway.

With large portions of the South in disarray and a growing population of freed slaves to assist, a day earlier Congress had authorized the creation of the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, henceforth commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau.

And on this day 150 years ago, the sun broke through what had been a rainy Saturday as Abraham Lincoln rose to deliver his second inaugural address:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

It is the final paragraph of this lesson in humility that is most frequently cited, but to me it is the preceding paragraph that lays the foundation of Lincoln's vision for healing the nation after the war, particularly this part:

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.

Neither side had expected the war to drag on so long and at such a dreadful price. And in the beginning, neither side had expected the end of slavery in America. But, "The Almighty has His own purposes." What had started as a war to save the Union had also led to the demise of an evil institution in America.

May 26, 2014

The month of May 1864 was a brutal one for both sides of the Civil War. In the north, Grant was overseeing the Union Army of the Potomac's blood-soaked Overland Campaign against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. To the south, General Sherman had begun his march on Atlanta and fallen into a similar maneuver and contact pattern that Grant had been executing.

This day in 1864 found both armies in Virginia wrapping up the Battle of North Anna after 2600 Union and 1500 Confederate casualties. Grant was preparing to move his army once again and Lee was preparing to counter him. In a few days the two armies would meet again at a place named Cold Harbor, leading to Grant's worst blunder in his role as Commanding General of the Army.

In Georgia, Sherman continued his relentless push to capture Atlanta. On this date he sent Joe Hooker's Twentieth Corps to attack rebels at the misnamed place known as New Hope Church, through a ravine that Hooker's men would soon name Hell Hole. The 4,000 Confederates used tombstones, terrain, and 16 well-placed cannons to devastate the 16,000 attacking Yankees. Within two hours Union casualties numbered nearly 1700 men compared to Confederate losses of 300-400. Sherman prepared to move again the next day and the rebels prepared to counter him.

April 09, 2014

On this day in 1864 General Ulysses S. Grant, then in command of all Union armies, issued his spring campaign order to Gen. George Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac. This part brightly signalled the bloody months to come:

"Lee's Army will be your objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also."

Grant was in full agreement with his commander's belief that the key to ending the war was to use the North's superiority in manpower and materiel and crush the South's armies. There would be no dilly-dallying from here on out.

Five days earlier Grant had sent similar orders to his other dedicated and talented senior commander, William Tecumseh Sherman:

"You I propose to move against Johnston's army, to break it up and to get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources.

"I do not propose to lay down for you a plan of campaign, but simply lay down the work that it is desirable to have done, and leave you free to execute in your own way. Submit to me, however, as early as you can, your plan of operations."

One year to the day after Grant issued his order to Meade, Appomattox.

February 17, 2014

150 years ago tonight the Confederate-owned submarine H.L. Hunley became the first submarine to successfully attack a surface warship, sinking the USS Housatonic in the outer harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Though the attack was successful, the Hunley never returned to base and all eight hands aboard were lost.

In fact, the Hunley was more adept at killing Confederates than Union sailors. After it was transported to Charleston by rail, it sank for the first time during a training accident, killing five of the eight men aboard. Six weeks later it sank again, this time losing all hands. The eight dead included H.L. Hunley himself. It's first and last combat mission killed five sailors aboard the Housatonic, the loss of the Hunley's third crew still made the tally 5-21 against the CSA.

Perhaps that tally, or the loss of its namesake, or a refusal to invest increasingly scarce resources led to the CSA ending their submarine project. I'm not sure, because there doesn't appear to be much information on how the Confederate leadership responded to the simultaneous success and failure. Or it's probably out there, I just haven't found it yet.